Sometimes everything in our lives goes well…except for our mental health. It can evoke all kinds of emotions and thoughts. We may not understand it. maybe we feel sinnerAnd the HopelessAnd the Frustratingdeeply ashamed. But there is nothing to be ashamed of. Poor mental health and mental illness can happen to anyone at any time.
Misconceptions about mental health
There is a big misconception that if our lives are “good,” we can’t experience our poor mental health. This is just not the case. Our physical health can be shaken, even if we just got a new job, are in a stable relationship and love where we live. maybe Our mental health.
As with any condition, some things can increase our risk of poor mental health, but some of us are diagnosed with a mental illness despite little or no recognizability. risk factors.
How do you feel
Feeling rubbish when everything around us seems to be as good as it seems, can be unbelievable Frustrating. we may feel sinner To our feelings when life is “good” and others are “worse”.
Guilt and self-loathing Self stigma It can prevent us from telling anyone how we feel. We feel lonely.
We worry that people will judge us because we don’t have the “right” to feel so bad when things are “good”. So we sit in our car so we can get it together on our lunch break. Paste a smile in front of our children. Swallow our tears before you get a phone call from a friend. In general, we keep our feelings to ourselves, and pretend we’re okay when we actually feel anything but.
crush things down
Some of us are very effective at the “Squish it” technique… for a while.
If something happens that makes us feel bad, instead of dealing with it, we crush it inside of us somewhere and try to forget about it. Unfortunately, When our ability to adapt is exceededThings start to unfold and we can no longer ignore them.
It can seem frustrating that there are things that affect our mental health that we thought we ‘sorted’. But trying to ignore the hard stuff doesn’t usually work as a permanent solution. It might work temporarily, but at some point, we might need to work through this tough stuff, and We may need support with this.
Mental health effects of delayed treatment
We don’t all process things at the same speed. Some of us react instantly. Others need more time.
We may have a traffic jam to process, especially if we encounter several complex and/or challenging situations in quick succession. It may take time to process all the things that have happened to us. The things people said, the things we had to do, the decisions we had to make, the times we had to be brave, and any spillovers of difficult circumstances.
Processing can almost become a background noise. As it continues, we may have dips in our mental health that seem to come out of the blue, but are actually about the point we’ve reached in the processing traffic jam. It may take time to work through this.
Getting to a safe place
There are times when we go through really difficult things and seem perfectly fine, and then we get to a place where things are less difficult, only for our mental health to be affected. This can seem upside down.
We can think of it as being stuck on a large hill in an unexpected storm. Each of us will react differently to this imaginary storm, but some of us “cope”. We’ll be the one who motivates our team, puts together a plan of action, and gets everyone out of the big hill into a warm, dry building. Only once in the building are safely we start shaking or crying.
Sometimes we don’t feel safe enough to really feel our feelings or acknowledge our situation when we’re going through tough times. We just lay our heads down and work hard to improve things for ourselves. Once we feel safe enough to let our guard down a bit, our mental health falters.
It can seem somewhat illogical on the surface. The bad times – the ability to adapt, the good times – barely able to get dressed. But from an evolutionary perspective, it makes perfect sense. While we struggle for the basics, all our energy needs to survive. Once our basic needs are met, we can shift our focus to our thoughts and feelings.
fuel free
Some of us are busy with that to be busy And commitments that we rarely stop to review with ourselves. This means that we do not notice that our mental health begins to fluctuate until the fluctuation begins to affect our ability to function.
when we’re all right weightWhether we enjoy the things that stress us out or not, it’s hard to maintain positive mental health. We can start feeling irritableYou cry a lot, you feel “on the edge” and like we’re less able to handle small issues than we might like.
To begin discovering this, it is helpful to start with a very clear picture of where we are. How much are we currently doing? How does it look? Drawing this into a weekly plan can help. We may want to add to it in a few weeks. When we first write it, we may forget things because we are so used to doing them.
Seeing a standard week written in front of us can help us assess if we are really too busy, and if we are, can we start cutting back on some commitments. Letting go of commitments can seem daunting, but sometimes we don’t have to stop doing things, you just have to adjust how we do them. For example, can we reduce our taxi fees by sharing the car to and from our various children’s clubs? Can we reduce the liability associated with our volunteer role? Can we afford to pay for cleaner in the morning of the week, allowing us to spend time with our family instead of soapy water?
Rebalancing our time can sometimes help get our mental health back on track.
“Okay” doesn’t match our values
“It’s OK” is personal. This means different things to different people.
While someone might define “okay” as having 2.4 children, a dog, a semi-detached home, and a well-paid job, others might define “okay” as the ability to consistently meet our basic needs.
None of us grow up in a vacuum. We’ve all been taught the definition of “going well” since childhood. It is often a mixture of family expectations, wisdom from friends, things our education system has affected us, and things we have internalized from our society.
As we get older, we develop our own opinions, identity, and belief system. It can take a lot of unpicking and a lot of work to remove the weight of expectations and take advantage of our personal values buried below. Our current state of “going well” can be a far cry from our personal values. This can make us feel separated, detached, and somewhat “outside”.
talking to others, writingAnd the readingAnd the memoirsDrawing, thinking, meditating, listening, and adjusting the things that feel “okay” and those that don’t feel “okay” can all help us all. Reconnect with who we areWhat do we want and what does “okay” mean to us.
The despair of poor mental health
One particularly difficult aspect of experiencing poor mental health when other areas of our lives are just fine is feeling Despair can adopt it.
When things go wrong, there is something we can attribute to our poor mental health. Something we can blame. Something we can point to and say “that’s it, that’s why”. Bad things are rubbish, but at least they give us focus. At least it looks like there’s something concrete we can work on.
When everything is going well.. where does that leave us?
It can feel hopeless, especially if we work hard to get to where we are and think we’ll feel better once we sort through all the ‘stuff’ we’ve been through in one form or another. Sometimes, it can lead to Helical Fly suicidal thoughtsBecause if we can’t put our finger on a particular problem that we can “fix”, we can feel like we’re doomed to feel like trash forever.
It is very important that we Get support When we feel hopeless. First, because no one should face such horrific feelings alone. But second, we have loved ones Or the professionals might be able to figure out things we couldn’t see. They may have ideas for things we can try. If not, they can at least be on our side until things get a little brighter.
Whatever our situation, we deserve support
Whatever our situation, however comfortable or uncomfortable the situation may be, we have experienced life so far, We deserve support.
Poor mental health and mental illness do not distinguish. Therefore, we should not. No one has the right to judge us for our struggle, whatever our situation, and that includes judging ourselves. We deserve to feel supported. We deserve to feel good. help abroad. We are not alone.
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